Business Forum: Settling Disputes Out of Court

Sooner or later you will likely be
involved in a dispute with a customer
that is tough to resolve. As a
mediator and arbitrator for the last
15 years, I've tried to help settle
over 1,900 such construction disputes.
Most of these don't stem from
bad intentions on anyone's part, but
instead from a mismatch of expectations
between the client and
contractor.
When this happens, the first
thing to do is to try to work something
out with the customer before
the two of you dig in. This starts
with acknowledging that, even
though your work might be of good
quality, a problem still exists because
a certain part of it isn't to your customer's
satisfaction.
Let the clients know